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Hugely ambitious crowd-sourced racer Project CARS aims not only to look utterly gorgeous but to allow a full career, beginning with karting and ending up in the motorsport of your choice. If it all comes off it could be the definition of definitive. There’s more on the development process here and the official site contains plenty of details. For now, here are some screenshots that have been cleverly disguised as photographs of vehicles. Racing game images often convince me that petrol-burning simulators will soon reach the point at which they look more like footage of cars driving fast than actual footage of cars driving fast.

Click to make the cars slightly larger, with a smidgen more detail at the periphery around them. It is only a smidgen but these are the largest versions I have.

It looks beautiful, but I wonder how it runs on a regular computer. I mean, making a super detailed 3D model is something, but having it in motion on something else than a rendering farm is another thing.

Race car drivers attract beautiful women. If I become good at this petrol-burning simulator and the simulator’s footage looks more like cars going fast than actual footage of cars going fast, would that make me eligible for time with said beautiful women? Or at least some footage of a woman simulator that looks more like a woman than actual women. Honestly, if I could just get a passing stranger to acknowledge me I think it would make me feel much better.

And here’s the opinion of somebody sane: It drives fug-all like Need for Speed shift.

C.A.R.S is definitely very sim-like, and at such an early alpha stage (official release late 2012) is already making people doubt the hype surrounding the pay-to-play tard-fest that is iRacing. God knows why I sub’d to iR for so long when other sims offer so much more. But then, I am also a tard.

I have one of those antique computers. You know, from around 2007. And the latest build of C.A.R.S runs OK for me even if it doesn’t look exactly the same as those screenshots. But that’s OK, because my girlfriend doesn’t exactly look like Kelly Brook but I still fancy the panties off her.

On the other hand – if you’re looking for arcade racing, probably best sticking to games like NFS, GRID, and all the other toss you’ve been spoon-fed lately. It’s already been made well clear the community is taking C.A.R.S into the anal world of simulation, and I like it that way. The anal way.

If endurance racing is your standard, and grid is your prefered game over the sims, Need for Speed: Shift (2) does it better. As someone who has done real 24h endurance racing, the game gave me flashbacks with it’s very convincing night racing visual effects.

EDIT: Which is apparently from the same devs as this game. Alright, then.

My personal favorite has always been GTR2, which had support for true 24h racing. But it’s a bit more of a sim, and quite dated now.

Oh boy, do I hope so. That’s all I’ve really wanted for new PC games, ever since I bought an Xbox 360 solely for Forza 3. Most of the other genres are swamped with so many classics I’ll never be able to play them all, but the closest thing we have to a “Racing Career Simulator” (is there a real term for this?) is GRID. Which is great, but not even really the same thing.

i thought it was car porn
also, yes please, do want
i dont always do car porn, but when i do, i prefer gran turismo :3
oh and on pc test drive unlimited is a step in that way, with added freedom (and removed closed circuits, with one exception)

As Microsoft seem to somehow forget they have a high end gaming platform when it comes to car pron projects (Forza 4 is clearly gorgeous and fun to play, but also technically incredibly limited by the rendering available on the toybox. MS are making assets well beyond the rendering details required by their low spec platform and yet for some reason refuse to release it for the big shiny platform, just using these assets for a screenshot mode. Madness!) I hope this project works out well.

I think you are forgetting Forza 4 as well as the whole franchise is a “killer app”, in other words a system seller. Forza 4 looks incredible, not just in screenshot mode, and on top of that manages to run on a solid 60 fps. And even then they managed to include 16 player races. Hell, I’m thinking of getting my first console this winter since my ps2 broke down in 2004 just for this game.

I’m not sure about this game. It looks absolutely incredible, but I’ve heard from a few sources it drives like Shift 2. In fact Damo is the first person I’ve listened (readened?) to to say that it doesn’t. I mean I don’t mind Shift because it’s not the only racing game I have, but I already have Shift. Also if has placed graphics before physics I won’t be buying, though going by these screenshots that would still allow for some incredible physics, so I can’t decide. I’m practically constantly on the verge of googling how to buy into the monthly builds, though. That Lotus (second picture) is just too sexy.

I also heard it’ll be F2P when it launches, this is not necessarily good, particularly if you can only rent stuff temporarily. Who knows? I do play/have a lot of PC sims/games (GT:L, Race ’07, GTR Evo, Dirt 3, GRID, Shift, F1 2011 and the hardest of all, GTA IV), I only use my PS3 for GT5 and I fixed a 360 just for Forza 3 back before GT5 came out so this does interest me greatly, I just don’t know if they’ll let me enjoy it like all the others (except GRID, which started doing some weird stuttering thing that I didn’t care enough to fix after a few races).

I understand your scepticism, but I’ve been sim-racing for well over a decade and i’m not always easily impressed. Make no bones about it, C.A.R.S is not perfect in any department as it stands. But we’re talking about a game that is currently in the making, in fact it’s less than 20% finished. The whole idea behind this is to get the community to shape the game. For your pennies, you not only get the game but also a say via direct communication with the devs in how it’s created. This is great news, because if you were to visit the forum you would see just how strongly the C.A.R.S following feel about the simulation aspects of the project. SMS themselves have said they wish to make the whole thing as authentic as possible, and they’ve got off to a great start. Check comments on VirtualR.net for some thoughts from sim lovers, but really, just plump up the £9 and try it for yourself. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed :)